Summer 2009

Drive down costs through the use of electronic tools

Are you looking for ways to drive down the costs of running your business while increasing your cash flow? Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSF) offers health care providers an array of electronic tools through the Availity^®1 Health Information Network that can remove unnecessary costs and time from office procedures, help get your claims processed faster and maximize your ability to collect payments at the point of service. The Availity Health Information Network is a central web-based portal, accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is free of charge to providers.

How do you realize financial benefits throughout the lifecycle of a patient visit? Let’s walk through a sample patient visit so you can see for yourself.

When a patient schedules an appointment or arrives at the office, run an Eligibility and Benefits (E&B) inquiry to ensure coverage is active and confirm benefit levels quickly. There’s no need for time-consuming phone calls. With a click of your mouse, E&B gives you actionable information, such as copay, deductible and coinsurance amounts.

Once you know the specific procedures the patient is scheduled to receive, a CareCalc^® transaction provides an almost-instant estimate of the patient’s out-of-pocket financial responsibility. With the number of high-deductible health plans on the rise, collecting what your patients owe before they leave the office is even more important. CareCalc eliminates the time and money you would otherwise spend billing patients or handling uncollected debt.

At patient check-out, use the Submit Claim option, easily accessible through CareCalc, to quickly submit the claim and receive a real-time adjudication response—all within two minutes! Create a whole new experience for your patients by giving them a virtually complete transaction before they walk out the door. And did you know that submitting an electronic claim allows your claims to be processed faster? You can even check the status of up to 150 claims at a time using the Claim Reconciliation Tool.

If you do the math, you can easily see how your office can save hundreds of dollars every single month by avoiding telephone wait time, manual handling of paper claims, postage costs and much more. All of these great cost-saving tools are accessible in one place, through the Availity Health Information Network, at no charge to you.

To register, contact Availity at (800) AVAILITY (282-4548). For free training on how to use these tools, log on to www.availity.com or contact your BCBSF physician/provider relations specialist for more information.